LIBRARY OF CONGRESS.^' 



i|ap. iuji^rtg]^ ]|u. 

Shelf _....\^._5_ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



I Pamt Colbjge Scries. 

^ X amber ^-ww-^^^^-w.--^.-^^.^^ ^ ..^^^^^^.^^^^ Tweiity- Three. 



I ¥iLLilM Shakespeare. 



^i 



,ai 



DANIEL \^^ISE, D.D. 



^^ 



/c?:?/<r 



^ti 



NEW YORK: 
PHILLIPS & HUNT. 

m CINCINNATI: 

S WALDENcfeSTOVVE. 

I 1883. 



The "Home CoLLEaE Series" will contain one hundred short papers on 
a wide range of subjects — biographical, historical, scientific, literary, domes- 
tic, political, and religious. Indeed, the religious tone will characterize all 
of them. They are written for every bod}' — for all wliose leisure is limiteri, 
but who desire to use the minutes for tlie enrichment of life. 

These papers contain seeds from the be.st gardens in all the world of 
human knowledge, and if dropped wisely into good soil, will bi'ing forth 
harvests of beauty and value. 

They are for the young — especially for young people (and older people, 
too) who are out of the schools, who are full of "business" and "cares," 
who are in danger of reading nothing, or of reading a sensatioual literature 
that is worse tlian nothing. ^ 

One of these papers a week read over and over, thought and talked about 
at "odd times," will give in one year a vast fund of information, an intel- 
lectual quickening, wortli even more tlian the mere knowledges acquired, a 
taste for solid read'ng, many hours of simple and wholesome pleasure, and 
ability to talk intelligently and helpfully to one's friends. 

Pastors may organize " Home College " classes, or " Lyceum Reading 
Unions," or "Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circles," and help tlie 
young people to read and think and talk and live to worthier purpose. 

A young man may have his own little " college " all by liirnself. read tliis 
s ries of tracts one after the other, (tiiere will soon be one huidi'ed of them 
ready,) examine himself on them by tlie " Thought-Outline to Help' ihe Mem- 
vry" and thus gain knowledge, and, what is better, a love of knowledge. 

And what a young man may do in tliis respect, a young woman, and both 
(lid men and old women, may do. 

New Yokk, Jan., 1833. 



J. H. ViNCEKT. 



Copyright, 1SS3, by Phillu'S &11unt, Nl-w York. 



^r- 



)0m^ €olkQt Serbs* Sitmkr CtutiitD-tbr^£. 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



William Shakespeare was born at Stratford-on-Avon, 
Warwickshire, England, in April, 1564. The precise day 
of his birth is unknown, but since the baptismal register of 
the church in Stratford shows April 26 to have been the 
date of his baptism, it is probable that his birthday was 
only a few days earlier, it being customary in those old times 
to baptize infants as early after birth as was practicable. 

Of Shakespeare's ancestors very little is certainly known. 
The name itself indicates their military profession. It is 
supposed to be derived from the fact that ancient spearmen 
brandished the lance before hurling it on the enemy. Hence 
old Ben Jonson wrote: 

" Look how the father's face 
Lives in his issue ; even so, the race 
Of Shakespeare's mind and manners brightly shines 
In his well torn and true-filed lines ; 
In each of which he seems to shake a lance, 
As brandished at the eyes of Ignorance." 

Whether this conjecture concerning the founders of his 
family be well-founded or fanciful is uncertain ; but of his 
father it is certain he was no soldier. The scant annals and 
traditions of Stratford afford such glimpses of his social posi- 
tion and fortune as to make it certain that he was a respect- 
able citizen, who, during the boyhood of his illustrious son, 
possessed a moderate estate and was higlily esteemed by his 
fellow townsmen, albeit his education had been so neglected 
that he could not write his own name. His business was 
that of a glover, to which he seems to have joined the 
cultivation of his lands. In official circles he figured as 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



constable, juror, alderman, bailiff, and magistrate. By mar- 
riage he vras allied to a family socially superior to his own. 
His wife, Mary Arden, was tlie youngest of seven daughters, 
and her marriage portion and her subsequent inheritance at 
her father's death contributed considerably to the solid com- 
fort of the home in which our poet spent his boyhood. 

William was the third of eight children born to John and 
Mary Shakespeare. Nothing is known of his child life. De 
Quincy says: "There can be little doubt that William 
Shakespeare, from his birth up to his tenth or perhaps his 
eleventh year, lived in careless plenty, and saw nothing in 
his father's house but that style of liberal housekeeping 
which has ever distinguished the upper yeomanry and the 
rural gentry of England." Possibly his father's expend- 
itures were on a scale too liberal for his income, inasmuch 
as his affairs became inextricably embarrassed in 1575. 
His subsequent long-continued difficulties with his ci'editors, 
of which the sensitive and observant William must have 
been painfully aware, probably furnished more or less of 
the materials out of which, in after j^ears, the poet drew in- 
spiration when writing his Timon of Athens. One can 
scarcely doubt that his father's h.irsh creditors were in his 
mind when he composed these lines: 

"His familiars to his buried fortunes 
Slink all away; left their false vows with him, 
Like empty purses picked: and his poor self, 
A dedicated beggar to the air. 
With his disease of all-shunned poverty, 
• Walked, like contempt, alone." 

There was a free grammar school in Stratfoi'd. Shakes- 
peare's parents, notwithstanding their own illiteracy, must 
have felt desirous of giving their hopeful boy an advantage 
the lack of which in their own lives must have been more or 
less a source of mortification, at least on occasions. Hence, 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEABR 



in the absence of positive proof, it is inferred that they sent 
him to this school. This inference is supported by the evi- 
dence furnished in his works that his early education had 
not been wholly neglected, that he had acquired at least 
a smattering of the classics. Nevertheless, there is no posi- 
tive proof that he was one of its pupils; nor, if he was, how 
long he enjoyed its instruction. 

Tradition said that " in his younger years he had been a 
school-master ni the coixntry." Others thinks that possibly 
he may have acted as an usher in the grammar school for a 
time. Another tradition places him in a law office, the 
financial needs of his father making it desirable, if not neces- 
sary, that he should contribute somewhat to the family ex- 
chequer. This latter supposition finds support in his use of 
law terms and allusions to an extent quite unusual in the 
dramatic literature of his age. But these are mere con- 
jectures resting on nothing more solid than the " airy fabric 
of a vision." 

But when our poet reached his nineteenth year we see 
him (too distinctly, for his own happiness) in the act of con- 
tracting an ill-advised marriage with a yeoman's daughter, 
named Anne Hathaway. How this marriage came about 
cannot now be known. That it was folly for an impecunious 
boy, not nineteen years old, to marry a woman of twenty- 
six none will dispute. But who was to blame ? Both, 
doubtless; but chiefly this mature woman. Anne was as- 
suredly old enough to perceive its unwisdom. The proba- 
bility is that she, if not the actual suitoi', was yet the lad's 
beguiler, Shakespeare was a hnndsome, well-formed man. 
His family and social connections were superior to hers. 
Perhaps, as De Quincy shrewdly suggests, her womanly 
intuition divined his prospective greatness. Moreover, being 
only a yeoman's daughter without a fortune of any moment 
in the marriage mai'ket, and ha\ing reached an age at which 
her chances of marriage were becoming fewer every year, 



WILLIAM SRAKESPEABH. 



she probably played off her charms, whatever they were, 
upon the lad's susceptible and inexperienced nature. But, 
be this as it may, the circumstances which surrounded this 
ill-assorted marriage were discreditable to both parties. And, 
as might be expected, it resulted in unhappiness to both, 
though it probably led the young husband into the career 
which developed his great poetical and dramatic genius. 
Twenty years afterward, Shakespeare revealed the wound 
that even then rankled in his breast in the following lines, 
which he put into the mouth of the Duke Orsino, when ad- 
vising his youthful page with respect to marriage: 

" Let still the tooman take 
An elder than herself; so wears she to him, 
So sways she level in her husband's heart. 
For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, 
Our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, 
More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn, 
Than women's are. 

******** 

Then let thy love he younger than thyself, 

Or thy affection cannot hold the bent : 

For women are as roses ; whose fair flower, 

Being once displayed, doth fall tlmt very hour." 

Shakespeare was married almost the first of December, 
1582. The following May a daughter, Susanna, was born to 
him. His father's reduced circumstances not permitting 
him to give the imprudent pair a home, must have made 
the boy husband more or less dependent on his wife's father. 
What he did toward the support of his wife is unknown; 
probably very little. ]t is also probable that Mistress Anne, 
conscious that her gentle young husband, sobered by his 
early trials into reflective moods, was ceasing even to re- 
spect her because of her forwardness in bringing about their 
marriage, began to retaliate his growing coolness by re- 
proaching him for his dependence on her father. His 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEABE. 



proverbial gentleness forbids the supposition that the dis- 
cord was open and violent. It is, however, scarcely to be 
doubted that their lives were inharmonious and unsatis- 
factory. And when, in 1585, twins were born to them, the 
increasing cost of maintenance for his family must have 
impressed the poet with the obvious fact that Stratford was 
not likely to furnish him the means of adding to his slender 
resources. It is natural, therefore, to supjiose that the press- 
ure of his discouraging circumstances led him to turn his 
attention toward London. . By going thither he would cer- 
tainly escape the anno}'ances of his marital life, and might 
possibly discover a path leading to fortune, if not to fame. 

To account for Shakespeare's departure from Stratford 
and subsequent long residence in London, the early biogra- 
phers of the poet invented a romantic story of his arrest 
and judicial whipping for stealing deer from the park of Sir 
Thomas Lucy. But later writers, after much sifting of the 
few ascertainable facts in the case, either pronounce the 
story unproven or discredit it entirely, as De Quincy does 
when, in his usual forcible manner, he says, "This tale is 
fabulous and rotten to the core." It is far more reasonable 
to accept the theory that Shakespeare, seeing no opening in 
Stratford for the play of his great talents, of which he 
must have been more or less conscious, acted on the advice 
of certain London play-actors who were natives of Strat- 
ford, and who often acted in that town when on their pro- 
vincial tours. His father, being an alderman, would necessarily 
become acquainted with those men through their applications 
to the aldermanic board for licenses. It is also very proba- 
ble that the elder Shakespeare, being given to jovial hospi- 
tality, entertained some of those leading actors at his table, 
and that William's dramatic and poetic tastes were awakened 
by listening to their conversations and witnessing their per- 
formances. 

But whatever his motives were, it is certain that Shakes- 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



peare when little more than twenty-two years of age went 
to London, leaving his wife and children in Stratford, where 
she remained to the end of her life. The incidents con- 
nected with his introduction to the metroj^olis, could they 
be ascertained, would no doubt be interesting and illustra- 
tive of the influences which aided the develoj^ment of his 
genius. But thick darkness covers this j)art of his career. 
It is true that a myth once found currency which stated 
that, on reaching London, he earned a living for some time 
by holding the horses of persons who rode to the theater. 
Another legend made him a " call-boy or deputy prompter, 
whose business it was to summon each performer according 
to his order of coming upon the stage." 

Concerning these legends it may be said first, that they 
contradict each other, since if he held horses outside the 
theater he could not act as call-boy on the inside. Against 
his holding horses lies the fact that gentlemen were not in 
the habit of riding to the theater on horseback, and that, if 
such had been their practice, they would not have left their 
steeds in the streets exjDosed to the weather during the hours 
required for the performance of a ,play. Against the sup- 
position that our poet was only a call-boy at his first entrance 
upon a theatrical life, lies the fact that his name appeal's in 
1589, less than three yeai's after his arrival, "as a share- 
holder in the important j^roperty of a principal London 
theater." This latter unquestionable fact makes both leg- 
ends incredible, and renders it almost certain that the act- 
ors who had known the elder Shakespeare in Stratford had 
discerned the signs of genius in the son, had invited him to 
London, and had given him immediate employment in their 
theater, either as an actor or as their assistant in altering 
and adapting old plays to the demands of their stage. This 
view is further strengthened by the not improbable sup- 
position that, before going to London, Shakespeare had 
written a series of sonnets which, though of very question- 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



able morality, contained many passages of rare poetic 
strength and beauty. These sonnets which, when published, 
he called, in their dedication to liOrd Southampton, " the 
first heir of his invention," were circulated in manuscript 
among Shakespeare's friends for several years. They were 
more than sufficient to convince such sharp-sighted play- 
actors as Betterton and Burbage, that while their young 
author's handsome face and fine figure fitted him to fill the 
part of mimic kings and potentates on the stage, his invent- 
ive, penetrative, observant mind also gave promise of dra- 
matic productions that might lend a dignity and literaiy 
attractiveness to the theater, of which it then stood, as it 
always has done, in very sore need. 

Of Shakespeare's manner of life in London during the 
twenty-five years of his residence there very little is posi- 
tively known. At first he appears to have been employed 
both as an actor and in adapting foreign and old English 
plays to the demands of the London theatrical audiences of 
that day. His success in these departments is proved by 
his so soon becoming part proprietor of the theater. Two 
years later he produced his first original play, " The Two 
Gentlemen of Verona." From this time, 1591, his creative 
genius was almost incessantly productive until 1611, when 
he wrote his last play, "The Tempest." During these 
twenty years of acting and play-writing — he probably did 
not act in the latter part of this period — he produced thirty- 
seven plays, an average of nearly one for every six months. 
When the high intellectual merits of these plays are con- 
sidered, with the variety and marked individuality of their 
numerous characters, their profound observations on human 
life, and their acute analyses of the motives which lie at the 
roots of men's actions, this fertility of Shakespeare's genius 
is truly astonishing. It justifies Coleridge in calling him 
" our myriad-minded Shakespeare," and De Quincy in pro- 
nouncing him " the glory of the human intellect." 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



Neither play-actors nor their intimate friends have ever, 
as a class, been noted for the moral purity of their lives. 
Men whose aim in life is the mere amusement of the 
idle and the gay are not apt to form very lofty ideals for 
the guidance of their own lives. Hence, in too many, per- 
haps a majority of cases, play-actors have been like Marlowe, 
an actor of Shakespeare's day, of whom it was said in a 
ballad on his death: 

" He was a fellow to all those 
Who did God's laws reject, 
Consoi'ting with tlie Christian's foes 
Aud men of ill aspect." 

No doubt many, if not most, of our poet's theatrical asso- 
ciates more or less resembled Marlowe. Taking his " Sugared 
Sonnets " and the grossness found in his comedies as the 
basis of judgment, one cannot Avell help thinking that Shakes- 
peare's habits of life were not wholly unlike those of his 
felloAV actors. That he was not like the worst of them is, 
however, made tolerably certain by the amazing produc- 
tiveness of his pen, and by his steadily increasing financial 
prosperity. What his intellectual industry achieved we 
have already seen, and his critics all admit that his latest 
work was his best. His thrift in pecuniary rnatters is ap- 
parent in that some three years after his arrival in London as 
an impecunious rustic, he became, as stated above, the owner 
of a share in the Blackfriars' Theater. Seven years later he 
had largely increased his interest in that establishment. In 
1603 he was a principal proprietor in the Globe Theater, 
and was rich enough to purchase the best house, with one 
hundred and seven adjacent acres, in his native town. He 
also secured a renewed grant of arms from the Herald's 
College for his father, whose fortunes and social position he 
restored by liberal provisions for the comfort of his declin- 
ing yccirs, In 1611, twenty -five years after his advent into 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 



London, he was able to bid adieu to the scenes of his labors 
and triumph, and to return to Stratford with an income 
equivalent in modern money to not less than seven thousand 
five hundred dollars per annum — the first man of letters 
who made a fortune by literature. From these successes it 
is a fair inference that, though the vices of his associates 
may have charmed him on occasions into practices contrary 
to Christian morality, yet they never loaded him with their 
chains, never made him their slave. Vice levies such ex- 
hausting taxes on time, brain, and purse that, if Shakes- 
peare had been its bond-slave, his wonderful achievements 
and financial prosperity would have been impossible to him. 
Shakespeare's rare abilities appear to have won early 
recognition in the literary world. As early as 1591 Edmund 
Spenser speaks of him as " our pleasant Willie," 

" The man whom nature's self had made 
To mock herself, and truth to imitate." 

He also designated him as 

"That same gentle spirit from whose pen 
Large streams of honey and sweet nectar flows." 

Our great dramatist's reputation as actor, author, and 
man is also shown in a pamphlet entitled "Kind-heart's 
Dream," by a brother dramatist, named Henry Chettle, who, 
having slandered ShakesjDeare in editing a posthumous work 
by a notorious literary man, named Robert Greene, subse- 
quently made him a very frank apology. After confessing 
his offense Chettle says : " I am sorry, because myself have 
seen his [Shakespeare's] demeanor no less civil than he is 
excellent in the quality he professes; besides, divers, [persons] 
of worship have reported his uprightness of dealing, which 
argues his honesty; and his facetious grace in writing, that 
approves his art." 



10 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

There is no reason for clonbting that this repenting ad- 
versary fairly interjDreted public opinion concerning the 
poet. It is also certain that Queen Elizabeth had some of 
his plays performed at her court, though there is no evidence 
that he ever acted in her presence. After her death he was 
in favor with her successor, King James. That his influence 
was great among his fellow actors and repressive of the 
worst features of theatrical life is apparent in that he had 
no sooner ceased from acting in 1604 than the company intro- 
duced plays which displeased the court and offended the 
tastes of many private individuals. E^ddently Shakespeare 
stood on a higher plane, intellectually and morally, than the 
men Avith whom he Avas associated. 

Crowned with high literary reputation, and in possession 
of wealth sufficiently ample to gratify his not immoderate 
desires, Shakespeare spent the last four or five years of his 
life in honorable retirement at Stratford. He died on the 
23rd of April, 1616, when only fifty-two years old. The 
disease which caused his death is unknown. His wife sur- 
vived him over seven years. Of the three childi'en born to 
them two daughters were living at the time of his death. 

The fact that the only legacy to his wife mentioned in his 
will was their " second-best bed," taken in connection with 
the equally certain fact that he never took her to London 
during his twenty-five years' residence there, has often been 
cited as proof that the discord of their early life continued 
to the bitter end. Possibly it did. His living so much 
away from her certainly suggests that their marital affec- 
tions were not very warm. Nevertheless, it does not prove 
the permanence of their discord, inasmuch as he is known 
to have paid at least an annual visit to Stratford, and to 
have made liberal provision for her needs during his absence. 
Tlie apparent meanness of his legacy is explained by the 
fact that under English law her dowry was ample, since his 
estate was principally freehold pi'operty. As to the " second- 



WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 11 

best bed," it has been thought that it was the one on which 
they had slept, the best bed being probably a spare one for 
company, and that its bequest Avas not a mark of ill-will, 
but of kindly feeling, if not of affection. There can be 
little doubt, however, that from the first they were not suited 
to each other, and that as his genius expanded they grew, 
intellectually at least, farther and farther apart, having less 
and less in common. Anne may have been proud of his 
fame, but pride is not love, nor can its gratifications satisfy 
the natural hunger of the human heart for affection. The 
poet most likely felt that his marriage to her was one of the 
great mistakes of his life; but, being of a peaceful, gentle 
temper, he probably resolved, like a prudent man, to make 
the best of his misfortune and to treat her kindly, although 
it was not possible for him to lavish upon her that measure 
of conjugal affection of which his great soul, had he been 
truly mated, was capable. His case stands as a grave pro- 
test against the folly of hasty, imprudent, ill-assorted mar- 
riages. 

No Christian can study Shakespeare's works without pro- 
foundly regretting that his splendid genius, instead of being 
consecrated to religion, was laid as a sacrifice on that polluted 
altar, the theater. With what unequaled splendor would 
his thoughts have shone had his far-seeing intellect been 
illuminated by the presence of the indwelling God ! What 
noble service he would have done for Christ had his great 
heart been filled with divine love ! Never, perhaps, was 
mortal man better fitted by nature for such high service than 
Shakespeare ! His native gentleness, if dii-ected by divine 
charity, would have made him like John among the dis- 
ciples. His amazing mental penetration, his keen moral 
perceptions, his power to make clear statements of truth, 
his wondrous energy and suggestiveness of expression, had 
they been pervaded, guided, sanctified, by the regenerating 
forces of the Holy Spirit, would have made him among the 



12 WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE. 

Christian poets of all ages what Paul was among the founders 
of the Christian Church, Alas, that all these great endow- 
ments should have been used to adorn an institution which, 
from its origin until' now, has been an instrument of social 
corruption! 

But, it may be asked, must not Shakespeare be written 
among the benefactors of the human race, despite his un- 
fortunnte connection with the theater ? Did he not strive to 
lift the drama out of the quagmire of moral corruption in 
which he found it ? Has he not left the world a legacy of 
immortal thought conceived in the interests of virtue and 
religion ? 

These queries arise very naturally in the mind of the 
Christian who makes himself familiar with this remarkable 
man's life and writings. In many things he stands out in 
strangely inconsistent attitudes, and his dramas, being but 
the expression of his character, necessarily resemble him. 
They are marked by both badness and goodness. One is 
disposed to think him a religious man when reading such 
passages as the following, on man's responsibility for the 
right use of his gifts : 

" Heaven dotli with us as we with torches do ; 

Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues 

Did uot go forth of us, 'twere all alike 

As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched 

But to fine issues : nor nature never lends 

The smallest scruple of her excellence, 

But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 

Herself the glory of a creditor, 

Both thanks and use ; " 

and this strong statement of the accountability of man 

to God : 

" In the corrupted currents of this world 
Offense's gilded hand may shove by justice ; 
. . , but 'tis not so above : 



WILLIAM SSAKmPEARE. 13 

There is uo shuffling, there the action lies 
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compelled, 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence ; " 

and this clear putting of the awful fact of universal 
guilt and need of mercy : 

" Consider this, — 
That in the course of justice, none of us 
Should see salvation : we do pray for mercy ; 
And that same prayer doth teach us all to render 
The deeds of mercy ; " 

also, this bold assertion of the doctrine of the atonement: 

" Why, all the souls that were were forfeit once ; 
And he that might the vantage best have took, 
Found out the remedy." 

Besides these admirable lines there are " above five 
hundred passages in Shakespeare's works which are taken 
apparently from Scripture originals, being either verbally or 
substantially founded on questions from Holy Writ." After 
reading them and wondering what motives influenced their 
author to put them into dramas intended for performance 
before audiences largely, if not mostly, composed of rude, 
profane, vulgar, graceless men and women, such as were 
wont to crowd a theater — especially its " pits " — in his times, 
one is inclined to think, surely Shakespeare was a pious man 
seeking to regenerate a corrupt institution. But when one 
finds that many of these solemn and sublime passages are 
intermingled with gross vulgarities, profane words, impure 
allusions, the indecencies of tavern wits, and the adventures 
of dissipated men and lewd women, one sickens at the un- 
natural admixture. No truly religious man could have thus 
yoked the holy to the unholy. On the other hand, no 



U WILLIAM SHAEiSSPEARE. 

thorouglily bad man could have given such reverential ex- 
pression to the sublimest truths of Holy Writ as one finds 
in the selections cited above. Gervinus, as quoted by Pro- 
fessor Shairp, claims that " the feelings and sentiments which 
rise most frequently to the lips of his purest chai'acters may 
be fairly taken as his own." But why may not the same 
thing be claimed for the feelings and sentiments which rise 
to the lips of his impure characters ? Coleridge, while ad- 
mitting the presence of the impure in his plays, contends 
that he has " no virtuous vice, never renders that amiable 
which religion and reason teach us to detest, nor clothes im- 
purity in the garb of virtue." He also claims that when 
contrasted with the plays of his age the superior morality 
of his dramas is unquestionable. Conceding all this, it yet 
cannot be denied that Shakespeare treats his vicious char- 
acters in such a facetious manner, that the reader is likely to 
be so pleased with their wit, humor, jollity, and good-natured 
abandon, as neither to look uj^on their vices with unqualified 
moral censure, nor to feel very profoundly the solemnity 
and point of the serious passages put into the mouths of his 
other characters. 

The Christian moralist cannot, therefore, accord Shakes- 
peare a place among the benefactors of mankind, nor discern 
in his character the impress of religious convictions. As to 
his being a reformer of the theater it is enough to say that, 
while his dramas gave it a loftier ideal than it had previously 
possessed, it was not reformed thereby. And at a later 
date, during the reign of Charles II., it became as vile as 
vice could make it. Neither can his plays be accepted as 
compositions written or fitted, in their aggregate influence, to 
promote the interests of religion and virtue. No doubt 
Shakespeare was a diligent reader of the Bible, that its sub- 
lime truths made a strong impression on his poetic nature, 
and that it sharpened his moral perceptions. But it is toler- 
ably certain that it neither captured his will nor ruled his 



WILLTAM SEAESSPEARE. 15 

life. Nevertheless, his artist's eye seeing how effective a 
background for his tragedies its majestic truths woidd make, 
he wrought them into his work with inimitable skill. They 
had their place — were necessary, indeed — in pictures of human 
life meant to be both idealistic and realistic. Hence 

" What's good, what's bad, what helps, what hurts, he shows," 

and therefore we find in his dramas, as in the feet of Neb- 
uchadnezzar's image, an admixture of iron and clay — the 
solidity of truth and virtue, and the frailty of error and vice. 
And his dramas represent the man. He had moral light, 
but it shone on a background of spiritual darkness; he had 
religious sentiments which quickened his imagination and 
swelled his emotions, but did not regenerate his heart. 
Hence, in his actions " he was no stainless knight," yet he 
was, through caution or a will strong enough to rein his ap- 
petites and passions, or both, not given to excess in vices 
prevalent in the theatrical circle of which he was apparently 
the ruling spirit. In his business transactions he appears to 
have been honorable; in demeanor, gentle; in spirit, kind 
and conciliatory; in conversation, entertaining; in enter- 
prise, vigorous and prudent; in his treatment of his family, 
liberal, but apparently not demonstratively affectionate; in 
intellect, a giant; in poetic genius, if not unequaled, yet 
never excelled; in religion, a formalist with predilections 
favoring, not Romanism or rigid ecclesiasticism, but puritan- 
ism. Taking him all in all, he was a mighty man, who, had 
he given the strength of his soul to the spiritual interests of 
mankind, would have contributed immensely toward the 
spread of the kingdom of God. But, notwithstanding his 
devotion to the earthly, such was the splendor of his genius, 
such the grandeur of his intellect, that Fame will continue 
to trumpet his name to the world until the end of time. 
Shakespeare won what he sought — the crown of immortality 
on earth." 



16 WILLIAM SHAKESPBARi:. 



CHARACTER OE SHAKESPEARE'S PRODUCTIONS. 

Take away the dross fi-om the silver, and there shall come 
forth a vessel for the finer. — Solomon. 

Shakespeare's genius is unrivaled ; but it is the earthly 
and the natural he paints. Of the heavenly and the super 
natural — the spiritual, in the highest sense — he says little. 
Perhaps the man felt more than the poet reveals. Perhaps 
he deemed human life alone to be the proper subject for 
dramatic treatment. Still the fact remains. His characters 
are all human. For the divine we must turn to another 
book and to other teachers. — Doctor Joseph Angus. 

Of all the attempts in modern literature to reproduce the 
manners and sentiments of the classical periods, Shakes- 
peare's are by far the most successful In the employment 
of classical imagery no poet has ever exhibited such mastery 
and grace. — Professor Thomas B. Shaw. 

All feel the beauty of Shakespeare's heroines, the variety, 
the naturalness, the perfection of his portraiture of women. 
They are in some sense the crowning glory of his finest 
dramas. — Professor John Campbell Shairp. 

The great art of Shakespeare, as a portrayer of character 
and passion, seems to consist in his manner of making his 
personages, accidentally, involuntarily — nay, even in spite of 
themselves — express their own character and admit us, as it 
were, into the utmost recesses of their hearts. — Shaw. 

Shakespeare was not only a great poet, but a great philos- 
opher. — Coleridge. 



[thought-outline to help the mkmory.] 

1. Bb'thyear ? Bii'tliday ? Ancestors? Ben Jonson's lines? His father? 

Mother? Brothei-s and sisters ? Child-] ife ? Education? Traditions about 
his early Oe'ciipations < 

2. Marriag-e? ^Vniie Hathaway? His reference to marriage? First child? 

Twills^ TriHible' Departure tVoiii Stratford ^ " ' 

3. Tlie deer-stealiiii;- story ? Life in London ? Unlikely stories? Probaliility ? 

4. First ori.o-inal play ? Last play? Date of each? i Numher of plays produed'd ? 

How Coleridge and De Quincey sneak of Shakespeare ? 

5. General character of play-actovs? Frobable character of Shakespeare? Fi- 

nancial success ? 

6. Edmund Spenser's allusions to him in 1591 { Shakespeare and Henry (^'het- 

tle ? Queen Elizabeth? Kinic James « 

7. Last years ? Death ? Age I . Wifu ? Children ? His last will ? 

8. Gi;eat ftiults of Shakespeare's works ? What he might have been? How are 

his dramas like himself? 



TE i?^t-:b O OI^S. 



No. 1. Biblical Exploration. A Con- 
densed Manual on How to Study Uie 
Eil.le. By J. H. Vincent, D.D. FmU 
and I icli 10 

No. 2. Studies of the Stars. A Pocket 
Guido to tlic Science of Astronomy. 
By H. W. Warren, D.D .'. 10 

No. 3. Biljlft Studies for Little People. 
Jiy Eev. B. T. Vincent ■. 10 

No. i. Enslish History. Bv J. H. Vin- 
cent, D.D \ 10 

No. 5. Greek History. By J. H. Vin- 
cent, D.D 10 

Nil. (!. Greek Literature. By A. D. 
Vail, D.D ; 20 

No. 7. Momorinl Days of the Chautau- 
qua Literarv and Scientific Circle 10 

No. 8. What Noted Men Think of the 
Bible, liy L. T. Townsend, D.D 10 

No. 9. William Cnllcn Bryant 10 

No. 10. What is Education? By Wm. 

F. Phelps, A.M -10 

No. 11. Socrates. By Prof. W. P. Phelps, 
A.M . 10 

No. 12. Pestalozzi. Bv Prof. W. P. 
Phelps, A.M ". Ill 

No. 13. Anglo-Saxon. By Prof. Albert 
S. Cook ,20 

No. 14. Horace Mann. By Prof. Wm. 
F. Phelp<, A.M 10 

No. 1.5. Friieliel. By Prof. Wm. P 
PIielp=, A.M... 10 

No. 16. Roman History. Bv J. H. Vin- 
cent.. D.D " 10 

No. 17. Ko;;er Aschnm and John Sturm. 
Glimpses of Education in the Six- 
teenth Coniurx. By Prof. Wm. P. 
Phelps, A.M.. .'. 10 

No. 18. Chrisiian Evidences. By J. H. 
Vincent, D.D 10 



No. 19. The Book of Books. By J. M. 
Freeman, D.D 10 

No. 20. The Chautaucpia Hand-Book. 

By J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 

No. 21. American History. By J. L. 

Hurlliui, A.M 10 

Nn. 22. Biblical Biolngry. By Rev. J. 

H. Wvthe. A.M., M.D 10 

No. 23. Enjrhsli Literature. By Prof. 

J. H. Giliiiore 20 

No. 21. Canadian History. By James 

L. Hughes 10 

No. 25. Self-Education. By Joseph Al- 

den, D.D., LL.D 

No, 26. The Tabernacle. By Rev. John 

C.Hill 10 

No. 27. Readings fri'm Ancient Classics. 10 
No. 28. Manneisaiid Cusioms of-Bible ' 

Times. By J. M. Freeman, D.D 10 

No. 29. Man's Atitif|uitv and Language. 

By M. S. Terry, D.D . " 10 

No. 30. The World of Missions. By 

Henry K. Carroll 10 

No. 31. What Noted Men Think of 

Christ. Bv L. T. Tovvnsend, D.D.... 10 
No. 32. A Brief Outline nf the History 

of Art. Bv Miss Julia B. De Forest.. 10 
yn. 3:'.. Elihii Burritt: "The Leanvd 

Jllnek.smith." By Charles Northend. 10 
No. 34. Asiatic Historv ; China, Coiea, 

Julian. By Rev. Wm. Elliot Griffls.. 10 
Xo. 3.5. Outlines of General Historv. 

Ity J. II. Vincent, D.D .". IC 

Xo. 36. Assemlilv Bible Outlines. By 

J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 

No. 37. Assembly Normal Outlines. By 

J. H. Vincent. D.D 

No. 38. The Life of Christ. By Rev. 

J. L. Hurlbut, M.A 10 

No. 39. The Sunda\ -School Normal 

Class. By J. H. Vincent, D.D 10 



10 



10 



Published by PHILLIPS & HUNT, 805 Broadway, New York. 



-\ '■ 



<. y . ^ ^ 



